


The Singing Towers

by crystanagahori



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode AU: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, F/M, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystanagahori/pseuds/crystanagahori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The true origins of River Song. Alternate universe and still very much Doctor/Donna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Singing Towers

**Author's Note:**

> Happened after watching the Library episodes. This re-watch is doing me in, seriously. In case it isn't obvious, I very heavily dislike River Song as a concept/character. Watching her season made me feel like the Doctor was caught in a trap he couldn't get out of. Thanks a lot, Moffat. 
> 
> So when I watched the Library episodes again, this happened. 
> 
> I believe it was basmathgirl who first referred to Jenny as the Doctor's 'little star.' Credits to to her for that!

River Song crossed one leg over the other as she huffed in her jail cell. God being imprisoned was _so_ bloody boring. Sure she could just pop out with a quick kiss of the hypno-lipstick (Estee Lauder from the 51st century, since nobody bothered to ask) and a quick beep from her magic time and space jumping wristwatch (she knew it had a proper name, she was just too bored to remember it at the moment), but that was entirely too typical for River. Ah well. This time it hadn't been her fault at all. So what if their dig site turned out to be a strategic military base for the Second Human Empire? She was doing this for the science, after all. UNIT always was a tetchy bunch, especially after the found out she'd nicked most of her gadgets off of Jack Harkness and Torchwood. 

She started to hum a melody, one that had followed her ever since she could remember. It was a song that accompanied her on cold nights, one she hummed when she was afraid, alone or worried. It was like a security blanket she kept close to her heart, and out of anyone else's ears. 

God forbid the magnificent River Song be afraid of something silly like the dark. 

She blew an errant curl from her face and leapt off her seat when she saw someone familiar approach the cell. After two regenerations, River had to admit that was jealous of Jenny's inability to _really_ regenerate. She might as well be immortal. She still had her sharp blue eyes and irresistible smile, always smaller than River but older in so many ways. A quirk of her origins, the Doctor had explained. The genetic anomaly, but she was oh so much more than that now. Jennynodded her blonde head at the guard at River's door, crossing her arms over her chest as River walked out of her cell, this time with permission.

"Why so serious?" She asked Jenny as a joke, seemingly unsurprised that she was being let go. "Took you long enough though. I could hear him laughing at me as I was hauled in. Was he angry?" 

"No," she said in a cold, detached way, like she could care less about her. Then she exhaled, all the tension easing out of her small shoulders. Jenny still had a bit of the soldier left in her, despite all her efforts to keep away from her instincts. She'd gotten better before, learning to use a gun as a last resort, never harming anyone who wasn't given a choice...she was so much better until....

"Sorry, it's been a long day," Jenny explained, as they finally started walking out of the prison. "When we first heard, he didn't seem too upset, his eyebrows barely twitched," she actually joked this time, and River chuckled. "But it's exciting! An exploratory mission to the Library? Silent for a hundred years and nobody knows why. I thought he would have liked that you were going to do that. He seemed to think sending you to jail would be smarter."

"Oh he'd like that, wouldn't he," River groaned, rolling her eyes as they approached the familiar blue box. "Land me in jail just for being an archaeologist. You know I have been working on this for _quite_ some time now, Jenny, it really isn't--"

River was cut off by the man that stepped quickly out of the box. She still wasn't quite used to his new regeneration. He, Jenny and River had practically been teenagers traveling in the TARDIS together his last regeneration, schlepping the blue box out to see the universe and now....

He was old, old-er. He seemed to have aged excessively since the last time River saw him, and it gave him a bit of satisfaction knowing that it was thanks to her. His salt and pepper hair was properly trimmed, and he'd shaved. She noticed these things from a man who was already quite vain to begin with, no matter what the regeneration. His suit even looked new, pressed and extra shiny red on the inside. Nothing much he could do about his eyebrows though.

"There you are," he said, like River had simply wandered off somewhere. "We have to go now, you and me. 

"Not going anywhere with you just yet," River argued, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant child. "Sorry, sweetie," she said mockingly, her voice dripping in fake flirtation and sarcasm, her best weapons. 

"Just shut up and come in," he snapped at her, rolling his eyes as he walked into the TARDIS. River turned to Jenny, who was frowning, like she was trying to piece together something in her own analytical mind. 

"Are you coming?" River asked and Jenny shook her head. 

"Just you and him this time," She winked at the other woman, giving her a hug before walking off, presumably to do something to the UNIT base that held River prisoner. River was about to step into the TARDIS when Jenny called back to her. 

"Be gentle with him, okay?" She asked, her bright blue eyes shimmering slightly. "He's...Dad keeps talking about her again."

River didn't need to ask who Jenny was referring to. It was there, their shared pain, something that the Doctor and Jenny felt so acutely, but held no significance whatsoever to River. But she knew how to be gentle, of course she did. She was River Bloody Song. She could be kind and understanding. 

"Where are we going?" she demanded, letting the TARDIS doors slam open before he sent them flying off into the Vortex. He started humming, in a way she'd never seen him before. He was singing it softly and reverently as he worked, purposefully not looking up at River. She could have recognized that tune easily, but she was so unused to hear anyone else singing it that she actually froze. It was the same song she'd been singing all her life, her security blanket, her deepest secret. And there he was, singing it, holding it over her head. 

"How...how do you know that song?" She asked tentatively, for once in her life, worried. 

"The Singing Towers of Darillium," the Doctor said, his face stern but pained. He spoke conversationally, like he hadn't been aware of the way he and scared River. "I haven't been there since...a long time. That's where your mother first heard your name, and I'm taking you to hear that song again."

The TARDIS lurched, and River felt herself hurled forward, literally thrown off balance. The Doctor wih his veiny old hands,grabbed her shoulders, kissing the top of her forehead. if she was looking up, she would have seen the tears in his eyes.

"Don't be alarmed, little star. It's going to be amazing." 

* * *

 

When she reached the Library, River's breath caught in her throat as she appraised the Doctor. He had come when she called, but he was too early. Way too early.  He had been exactly like she knew he would be--bossy and rude, brilliant. Shouty, of course, and a bit on the thick side. The look on his face when he realized what happened to Donna made River's heart clench. 

He looked at her with such distrust that it felt strange. He was supposed to know her from the day she was born, and yet here he was, distrusting of her. He purposefully put her an arm's length away. It actually ached. He knew there was something about her, of course the way he kept eyeing her bloody journal was so obvious. But this Doctor had no idea. River was tempted to just shake him and yell, 'Doctor, it's me, your daughter!' 

She hadn't even really registered Donna until Miss Evangelista sought her out. The Nice Woman, she's been called. River knew her mother was much, much more than that. She wondered if she was anything like Donna Noble, she hoped she was. Jenny and the Doctor spoke about her with such reverence and love that River never really understood, but when she realized that the ginger woman before her was her mother she felt her heart sink even further. There she was, the source of her song. River never felt the gap in her heart that ached for her mother until now.  

River wanted to cry, to curl up into her mother's lap and tell her everything. She wanted to tell Donna how she and the Doctor would fall in love, how they would find Jenny again, how River would be born and they would be happy, even for a while. How she would grow up without a mother, learning to do things on her own after the Doctor's grief was inconsolable. How Jenny would tuck River into bed and tell her about Donna, until the Doctor regenerated into a scrawny twenty year old hipster and took them to the best adventures in the universe. 

She wanted the Doctor and Donna to know how much she loved them both. How sorry she was for being the way she was, for leaving the Doctor behind, everything, everything, everything. She would have given up every curly strand of her hair to any deity out there if it meant she could save her own mother.

It was much later that day that River realized why the Doctor acted the way he did when they saw the Singing Towers. As much as he still mourned the loss of Donna, he had mourned losing River too. He'd sung her song as a goodbye, just as she'd whispered his name to gain his trust. She wasn't going to leave the Library now, and if it meant saving Donna (oh and the Doctor), even just this once, River was okay with it. 

River knew, after she'd punched her father in the face (god, that felt so _good)_ that she would never see him again. She sat on the throne of the computer, reconnecting and recalibrating things with her mother's sonic screwdriver, all that time humming the song that comforted throughout the years. As the Doctor reached out desperately to her, fumbling at the edges for the right answer of who she was, River felt her song build into a crescendo. It filled her, and she was wrapped around the melody as she closed her eyes.   

Nobody needed to know that River Song was afraid of the dark.  

* * *

Donna held the baby in her arms, rocking her gently back and forth as they stood underneath the tall spires. The towers were singing, filling the air with a melody that made the baby giggle and babble along like she wanted to sing too. 

"Look at you, trying to sing," Donna cooed, tickling her chin and patting the tip of the baby's nose. Bundled up as they were in the cold, the music was comforting as they streamed out of the towers, choruses and melodies that Donna wished she could sing along to. She looked over at the man standing in the snow with them, his hand in his pockets, closing his eyes like there was nothing else in the world, just him and the music. He took a deep breath, like was about to join in, but simply grinned over at Donna, his long coat sweeping behind him as he came to join her and the baby.

"How can we hear the song? Last time we were here, the Ood needed telepaths to hear them singing, didn't they? " she asked, still rocking their daughter gently, swaying in time to the song. She was humming it now, the same tones and notes staying in her mind.

"It's the towers," the Doctor answered right away, nudging his head towards the tumbling spires in front of them. "Generating some vibration from the telepath field and the Ood brain waves, translating the song. Kind of like giant speakers, it's brilliant! Don't you think so, little star? Oh of course you do," he said, addressing the last two sentences to the child in Donna's arms. The baby looked up curiously at her father like she was trying to remember who he was supposed to be. "Brilliant baby like you, should be able to sing your own song if you liked!" 

It was their first trip out of the TARDIS since Baby Smith-Noble had been born. The Doctor had initially been adamant that she not be let out of the TARDIS at least until her first regeneration (that was, if she regenerated at all), but Donna insisted that they needed to go...somewhere. Somewhere out there, they had to find a name for their daughter, and if the Doctor couldn't deal with that, then that was his own fault. It was supposed to be the Doctor's job, finding the baby a name, but after he suggested they name her Japonica, Donna had decided to let the universe to the naming for them. 

Thus the visit to the Ood colony on Darillium. 

Of course, the baby already had a Gallifreyan name. It was a beautiful name, one the Doctor made to closely resemble his. He'd whispered it to the baby as he had told Donna his name, reverently. In the sweet dulcet tones of his whispered name Donna saw the Doctor's name and heir daughter's, kept in her heart like the most precious secret that it was.

 At least on that end, he'd kept up his part. Donna could see it in her mind's eye, her daughter's name writing itself in those strange circles like Donna herself was trying to say her name out loud (not that she could). The baby in her arms made noises again, and Donna wondered if she could sense her mum calling for her. 

"So darling, anything yet?" Donna asked the child, sighing. The baby looked up at her mum with bright brown eyes, sneezing in the cold. 

"I'll take that as a no," The Doctor said, quickly plucking the baby from Donna's arms and marching back into the TARDIS before she dared sneeze one more time. He kissed the baby's forehead, nuzzling his nose against hers and making her giggle. "Poor little Nameless, we'll find something for you yet."

Donna simply smiled and rolled her eyes, following behind them, eschewing his suggestions of names like 'Freesia', 'Elian' or even 'Dorit.' Of course he knew she would never choose those names. He already knew who this child was going to be. He kissed the top of his daughter's forehead, nuzzling her a bit as they entered the safety of the TARDIS. He tried to push thoughts of her death in his mind, trying to focus on the time he would have with her now. 

Little did the Doctor know, Donna had already heard her name in the Ood song, the word filling her mind so strongly that the baby started to fuss in her father's arms.


End file.
